


Adjustment Period

by AceQueenKing



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Man Out of Time, Padmé Amidala Lives, Poe Dameron Welcomes Padmé to the World of Tomorrow, it kind of sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-01 11:47:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14519859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: "It's gotta be so weird," he said, as she stared at the mountain in the distance and wondered if it was the only thing here older than her. "Being where you are. Out of time."





	Adjustment Period

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Apricot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apricot/gifts).



Padmé Amidala stared at the ragtag group around her daughter's council and tried not to hyperventilate at how strange this all was. The group was the very definition of rag-tag, a disparate group of aliens of various species. The tech looked second-hand even in her day, which was just yesterday for her and, _evidently_ , almost half a century for everyone else. There were no Jedi here, just filthy, hungry pilots begging for help.

And Anakin wasn't here.

Padmé bit her lip. Leia reminded her of him, so in charge. The same rank now, father and daughter: General. She was almost afraid to find out what had happened to him. When she had asked where Anakin and Luke were, Leia had curled a hand on her shoulder and s:aid "Later." It didn't take a child prodigy (though Padmé had been one) to see that there was an issue there.

Padmé did not need to be a Jedi to sense pain.

Sitting at Leia's high table - which she didn't feel she deserved, but Leia insisted - she felt hollow and old. The group talked about bombing runs, with ships she'd never heard of against enemies she'd have thought the Republic would have defeated by now.

But, of course, there was no Republic now. And that, somehow, was the hardest thing to try to hold in her heart; that the Jedi were gone, the Confederacy, the Republic, the Senate, _Alderaan_ ; all gone.

Her head swam through the whole meeting and she was of absolutely no help. Leia had tried to get her input on a couple matters of diplomacy, but what help could she be when she understood nothing of the foes they were facing?

She wanted, so badly, to crawl back into the carbon freezing chamber she'd evidently been put into. Obi-Wan had evidently left her there, then gone and died, and everyone else had forgotten her.

Even Anakin, or perhaps Anakin - she swallowed. He was gone now, either way. It would not do to dwell on him. She would have the story from her daughter later - and her daughter, despite all that had happened, still lived. Leia had grown, thrived, and had even grown old without her. Her daughter was both older and younger than her now.

Looking at her just made Padmé realize how much she'd missed. And how little, evidently, that the universe had missed her.

"Excuse me," she said, excusing herself from the table. Leia glanced at her, but the gesture seemed to register more annoyance than concern. Padmé didn't bother to give a reason, simply hastily beating her way back to - well, not here.

She heard a chair scraping in the meeting room as she left but paid it no mind; she drifted through the rooms of the resistance, each more and more alien to her. The universe had pulled away from her; despite all efforts to the contrary, Padmé couldn't save the Republic. She couldn't even save her family.

A tear slipped down her cheek and she angrily batted at it, wiping it away. 

"Excuse me, uh - ma'am? Ma'am?" A voice to her side was saying; Padmé ignored it, moving toward the garden. It was a nice world, this place. Reminded her of Naboo, almost.

"Ma'am?" The boy's voice - and he sounded very young, _hopelessly_ young - was saying. She wondered who he was talking to.

A hand landed on her shoulder. "Hey, ma'am - Padmé, was it? You okay?"

She turned, surprised. The boy was young, and more than that, had been talking to _her_. He was wearing a flight suit, black hair curled around his temples, like Palo. Palo, she realized numbly, would be in his nineties now - if he was even alive.

The look in his eyes though, was not Palo's placidness but rather Anakin's hunger; immediately, her thoughts turned to her long-dead husband. This boy looked like he wasn't sure if he wanted to devour her or worship her, and Padmé found herself nothing but homesick.

"Cat got your tongue?" He said, and then he smiled, and the spell was broken. He was his own man, she realized, dumbly; she would have to get used to it. Anakin was gone, Palo too; both, likely, long dead. If she kept focusing on them instead of the living, she would drown herself in her tears.

And there was so much work to do.

"Sorry, I - yes, it's Padmé." He beamed when she responded, the smile lighting up his face magnificently. He _was_ a cute one, she thought.

"I just wanted to check on you. The General, I love her, but - she can be pretty abrasive."

"She's my daughter," Padmé said, though of course, that meant little: Leia was almost as much a stranger to her as Poe. "I love her."

"Didn't say you didn't, ma'am." He reached one hand out slowly and lightly touched her hand. She felt a spark and, despite everything, felt the barest hint of joy in her heart. "Just - not sure you're used to how she is."

"I - I am realizing that." She swallowed, trying to get rid of the wet clump of words stuck in her throat. Didn't work. "It's just - yesterday, to me, she was this tiny baby in my hands, and today - "

"She's a _kriffing_ goddess, yeah." The guy held out his hand. "I'm Poe, by the way."

Padmé realized with some chagrin that she hadn't even asked for his name, so taken with her own sorrows. So much for the Senator. "I'm so sorry, Poe. It's an uh - honor to meet you."

"No offense taken, and an honor to meet you, too. You were one of my mom's heroes, you know. Though she never said how pretty you were."

Padmé stared out into the verdant valley of - she'd already forgotten the name of the planet. Far from Mustafar, at any rate. Or Naboo. Or Coruscant.

"What was her name?" She asked, looking at him carefully. He smiled, and she found she liked his smile, dashing charm dancing in his eyes. She _bet_ he was a daredevil. And daredevils were, historically, her type. 

"Shara Bey," he said, looking up at her with beautiful brown eyes. "You wouldn't have heard of her. She was just a kid when - _well_."

He cleared his throat, and Padmé frowned. Another rude reminder she was out of time.

"It's gotta be so weird," he said, as she stared at the mountain in the distance and wondered if it was the only thing here older than her. "Being where you are. Out of time."

"It's - it's certainly that," she said, democratically. "Everything and everyone I ever knew is dead. Except for Leia and perhaps - " She raised her eyebrows, afraid to ask but yearning to know.

Poe shook his head. "I'm sorry. Luke is - well, he's not with us, not anymore. I  didn't meet him, but I'm sure Rey will talk about him. Maybe Leia, too, once you manage to corner her."

"Corner her? On her own _brother_?" She gaped at him, open mouthed. She had assumed Obi-Wan had, at the very least, kept her babies together. She hadn't thought that they might not agree with one another, might not be on the same side. "Did he - was he - " the next word stuck in her throat, stubborn, but she persevered until it came out, as oderous as it ever was - "fallen?"

"No," Poe said, looking at her with a new look in his eyes: pity. "He never did. He was a hero - at the end. And before that, too; the Rebellion, the Resistance - we wouldn't be here without him, ma'am."

"That is good," she said, making a note to chase down this Rey later. She'd like to know her son - even if he was no longer living. On Naboo, one was never truly dead as long as stories were told; she would keep him in her memory, in her heart, and she would fight for him.

And Leia, too.

"I guess heroism runs in the family," he said, winking at her.

She stared at him in surprise; was he flirting with her? He stared at her, slightly self-conscious perhaps, as he bit his bottom lip.

"Are you flirting with me?" She teased. She held her hand out, feeling foolish.

"Oh, you're way out of my league." Poe put his hand on his heart and laughed. "I wouldn't _dare_ to flirt with a senator. The General would have my head if I broke your heart."

"I'm not a Senator, not anymore." She shrugged her shoulders; it was hard to believe there wasn't a Senate, not anymore, but Leia had told her it had been dissolved twice, now. Padmé was trying, very hard, to take that in stride. And mostly failing, but well - she had all the time in the world to get used to it, didn't she? And Poe, too: she certainly had time to get used to him. "And we don't have to tell my daughter."

"Hm," he said, raising an eyebrow, an unspoken question on his lips. "Well, I won't kiss and tell if you don't."

"Poe, do you drink?" Padmé held out her hand and he took it. His hand was solid and warm; comforting, in its own way. "Right now, I could really use a drink."

"Ma'am, I never thought you'd ask," he said, his eyes sparkling with promise.

She took his hand and held onto it tight. There was so much work to do, but first - she would take a moment to just breathe.

And maybe with Poe, she'd adjust.


End file.
